New signs deter littering in Mansfield

Thursday

Jul 13, 2017 at 7:00 AM

For the past 10 years, Keep Mansfield Beautiful has been organizing volunteers to clean up litter around Mansfield. This year, the volunteer group has launched a new campaign to prevent people from littering in the first place.

On May 31, Keep Mansfield Beautiful volunteers returned to a short stretch of Spring Street. Even though only 30 days had passed since the Great American Cleanup of Mansfield, 10 pounds of fresh litter had already accumulated over a span of just 30 days, according to Neil Rhein of Keep Mansfield Beautiful. This included 42 empty Sutter Home wine bottles.

After cleaning up the accumulated litter, Keep Mansfield Beautiful installed 10 temporary anti-litter signs. These signs were donated by Atlantic Broom Service Company. The signs were designed to make people think twice before littering and to contemplate the fact that littering is an illegal act, Rhein said.

Thirty days later, volunteers returned to the site and removed the 10 signs. After cleaning up the same area, a notable improvement was detected. Less than one pound of trash was collected and no empty wine bottles were found.

“We were thrilled with the results of this experiment,” Rhein said. “We understand some residents may not have been pleased with the appearance of these signs, but it’s clear they served as a deterrent to littering and that was our goal.”

Earlier this month, 10 additional temporary signs were installed on County Street. Keep Mansfield Beautiful plans to follow a similar process there and on other highly-litter roadsides, Rhein said. Keep Mansfield Beautiful has also contacted the Mansfield police and asked for increased vigilance in enforcing anti-littering laws.

“By enforcing existing laws and educating the public about the proper ways to dispose of their trash, we hope that someday we will no longer need to organize volunteer litter cleanups,” Rhein said.